In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,133
swollen—at this point, she didn’t even look human, but more like a half-inflated balloon—she could only roll her left eye.
“No ’lergic ’tion. Fine.”
“Sweetie, you are not fine.”
“She’s right,” Charlie said, grabbing Max’s arm. “We need to get you to the hospital now.”
Max pulled away from Charlie’s grip. “Fine. Show.”
Stevie should have known better than to wait for her sister to “show” them how “fine” she was, but who in their right mind would ever think that someone would walk up to a wall and just slam the swollen side of their head against it?
Who would do that? Who?
Horrified, Stevie covered her mouth with her hands, the EpiPens still held tight. Charlie dropped the plastic bottle filled with antibiotics, her eyes wide.
“Max!” she screamed. “What the fuck?”
Max didn’t answer at first, her back turned to them, her hands dug deep into her head. But then, finally, she faced them.
“See?” she asked, pointing at her deflated head. “I’m fine. Just needed to pop it like a balloon.” She waved the EpiPens away. “So, I don’t need that.”
Stevie still pointed at her sister’s face. “You do have some very angry red lines . . . in your face.”
“That’s the infection. I didn’t say I don’t have an infection.” She watched Charlie pick up the prescription bottle. “Although why you have antibiotics just lying around the house, I don’t know.”
“You really don’t know?” Stevie asked. “Even after ramming your head into the wall?”
“Don’t be overdramatic.”
“Wasn’t being dramatic at all.”
“How often do you have to do that?” Charlie asked, pouring out half the pills onto the table. Max would take half the pills now and the other half in about eight hours. None of that twice a day for seven to ten days stuff like with full-humans. Shifters had to attack any major health problems a lot quicker because their systems worked so fast.
“Take pills?” Max asked.
“No. Ram your head into the wall?”
“I don’t know,” she replied before taking several pills without even the assistance of water.
Stevie quickly grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, opened it, and placed it in front of Max.
“Thanks. I guess, as often as I have to. Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m worried that if we X-rayed your brain, it would look like you’ve been playing for the NFL for the last forty years.”
“I’ve got a badger skull.” Max swallowed a few more pills. “It can handle anything. It’s the flesh around it that’s weak and can’t handle a little cat pee.”
“That’s right!” Stevie laughed. “This did all start with you arguing with a cat, didn’t it?”
“She attacked me.”
“Yes. Of course she did.”
Stevie heard the front door open and close. She expected to see one of the Dunns entering their kitchen, but it wasn’t any of the triplets. It was Kyle’s older sister Oriana. She had on a tiny bikini, flip-flops, a giant straw hat, and a towel over her shoulder. She also carried a large tote bag with her that appeared to be filled with books.
“Hey, all,” she said.
She stopped briefly in front of the refrigerator and reached in to grab a bottle of orange juice. “I’ll be out by the pool, Stevie,” she announced before walking back outside.
The sisters were silent for a long moment before Max asked, “Are we going to have to see her skinny ass strutting around here very often?”
“Hey!” Stevie reminded her. “That’s my friend.”
“Awwww,” Max mocked. “Little Stevie has a friend.”
Charlie returned to the kitchen table to make some quick breads she could pawn off on the local bears, thereby keeping the cinnamon buns for the rest of them. “At least I don’t hate Stevie’s friends . . . unlike your friends. Who I despise.”
Stevie grinned. “Exactly.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“If you two are going to fight,” Charlie warned, “do it in the living room. Not here. But before you two start grappling . . . Stevie, she smells like pee.”
Max went to grab her, but Stevie made a crazed run for it out the back door.
* * *
Oriana walked into the garage, gaping at the work her brother was doing. He was working with marble and, even she had to admit, he was good. Maybe the best living sculptor in the world.
Not that she’d ever tell him that. Just like every time he was “forced” to watch her dance with the rest of their family, he asked when she’d last eaten.
Stepping away from his sculpture of a naked Bo Novikov—she could only hope her brother was just guessing at what a naked